LETTERS TO

MAYOR BYRON BROWN

from Columbus Park residents regarding the Peace Bridge plaza expansion plans:

Your Honor:

Thank you for visiting the homes of the Columbus Park neighborhood, communing with the residents, and meeting to discuss the Peace Bridge Expansion Project. But while we have, again and again, made our position clear, we’ve yet to hear the same from you. When pressed, you stated you want the “process to move forward.” Further, you see yourself in the role of “shepherd.” If you are a shepherd, who is your flock?

When a resident in our meeting questioned you whether a Porter Avenue property was earmarked for development, you professed no knowledge of any plan for the property. Then, one week later, your office announces a plan to turn property barely one block away into a “prime development site.” Your choice to withhold this information from us speaks volumes. It is deception by omission, and it makes your position abundantly clear.

But you are less the shepherd of this project than the sheepdog. You are herding a great part of a vital urban neighborhood to slaughter and exiling the remainder to a concrete encampment inside a profoundly foolish public works project.

You may as well put up the barbed wire now. And call in the wolves.

Peter Joseph Certo

Buffalo

Dear Mayor Brown,

With your failure to apprise the Niagara Gateway Columbus Park Association about the development plans for historic Porter Avenue at 4th Street at our meeting last week, you have once again demonstrated your callous disrespect for the significant benefits of our historical West Side community.

You remain determined to disregard the great potential that preservation and restoration of this historical district would have for the City of Buffalo. The Porter Avenue announcement is further proof that you never intended to work with us in the true spirit of community.

Your administration is embroiled in multiple lawsuits with community groups because your leadership can no longer be trusted. Your loyalty is clearly with private interest groups, land developers, the DOT and, of course, the Public Bridge Authority. Just follow the money trail and there you are—our leader, our mayor.

The great men and women who walked the very streets you intend to sell off saw the unique beauty that can only be found here. It is the only location in the entire city where Lake Erie meets the Niagara River. The sunset that illuminates the “jewel of the Niagara” moved a great man, Frederick Law Olmsted, to design genius right here in this community. Now you and your partnering agents want to parcel out, destroy, demolish or encase this one-of-a-kind treasure (not just Front Park) in concrete, steel, roadways and monster trucks.

You and I have often talked about the wonderful history of this great city. Several times I have asked you how historians will record your time in office as the mayor of Buffalo. You have never responded.

The good people of this community as well as the community-at-large remain steadfast. This district is not for sale. We will not allow you or your agents (Tim Wanamaker, Ron Rienas, Brian Higgins, Alan Taylor, Astrid Glynn or Governor Spitzer, etc.) to auction off our community brick by brick, house by house or block by block.

As two local activists have so eloquently stated: This is no longer a neighborhood problem, but a crisis for the entire city. Leaders can either rebuild a city for people who want to stay or for people who want to leave. Clearly, you fit into the latter.

Kathleen Mecca, President

Niagara Gateway Columbus Park Association

reviewing

wheez von klaw

I wanted to congratulate Artvoice and Wheez von Klaw regarding Wheez’s recent article about the recent book on Barbara Payton entitled Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye.

I know nothing about Barbara Payton and, to my knowledge, have never seen one of her movies. But based on Wheez’s entertaining and informative review I felt compelled to immediately order and begin reading this book. This rarely happens to me. As promised, it is lurid fun and it is to be highly recommended to fans of American film and pop culture.

Keep up the great, thought-provoking writing!

John T. Kolaga

Buffalo